Mr. Mark Griffin:

All of that due diligence is done as part of the evaluation processes. On the bidder, the team he has coalesced around him - all of whom are Irish apart from one individual - and who have taken part in the bid process have massive experience across the telecoms sector in Ireland. They have had significant responsibilities in rolling out national telecoms networks in various countries, delivered 170,000 km of fibre across 56 private projects and managed or delivered €30 billion in contracts business values. These are big hitters. We would not be comfortable as a Department in putting forward a solution unless we had faith in the entity. The other thing it is important to say is that the evaluation process as part of the final bid assessment looks at all of these issues, including the capacity of the bidder and its technical ability to deliver a project on this scale.